In November 2012, Debby Wadsworth, from Minneapolis, met a soldier named Staff Sgt. Ricky James from Coral Springs, Fla., on the online dating site Countrymatch.com.
James was an Army Reserve explosive ordnance disposal technician, deployed to Baghdad, where he served on a United Nations mission supporting Iraqi counter-IED teams. James was handsome, interesting and friendly. He had been emotionally hurt when his fiancée left him, but he was ready to find someone else.
There was just one problem ...Staff Sgt. Ricky James doesn't exist.
Wadsworth was the target of a “romance scam,” a confidence scheme directed mainly at single women, age 30-55, through social media and online dating sites.
Luckily, she noticed something was wrong within a week, so she started asking questions. James said he was Army Reserve, but gave Wadsworth an Air Force unit name. He said he was a staff sergeant, but his rank in some of his military pictures was sergeant first class. After a few weeks, Wadsworth called his
bluff and found out her “soldier” was a scammer from Ghana.
“Within the third day, I questioned his unit, because it was an Air Force unit,” Wadsworth said. “It [the unit] was in Singapore and then was disbanded. It just didn’t add up.”
As they attempted with Wadsworth, criminals gain the women’s trust over a period of weeks and create an emotional connection. Then, after a few weeks, there is some crisis that is presented to their target where they are asked for money. In many cases, the scammer says they need money to be “released” to go on leave or claims that the Army has blocked their access to their bank accounts. This was the case with “Staff Sgt. Ricky James.”
Wadsworth had mailed a care package to him, but received a message from him that said he needed $100 to get the package released from customs in Ghana. In any case, it’s
emotions, patriotism, and respect for soldiers that the criminals are playing on.
“They [the marks] are middle-aged women who are patriotic, and looking for relationships,” said Christopher Grey, the spokesperson for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division.
Soldiers are an ideal fake identity to use because of their positive public image. CID has been fighting these “Romance Scams” since 2009, but progress is difficult when public awareness is their only effective weapon.
“The Army’s jurisdiction stops because they [the criminals] aren’t in the Army,” said Grey. “A majority of the criminals are in west African countries.”
Wadsworth knew it was a scam, but she kept playing along. The requests for money continued, when “James” claimed to have saved a family hording a cache of valuables that he had reportedly mailed to her.
“It conveniently gets stuck in the customs house in Ghana, and he needed $3,000 to get it out,” she said.
West Africa is a popular origin for these scams because of the difficulty in tracking the perpetrators. Internet cafes in that part of the world are poorly regulated and usually don’t keep records of their patrons and their use, making the criminals who use them extremely hard to find. The persistence of the scams also makes stopping the criminals difficult.
“Once we pull one down, within five minutes, five more pop up,” said Grey.
With millions of soldiers and veterans and their online accounts to choose from, the con artists have millions of sources for material.
Soldiers are not usually aware that their identities have been used in this manner, and since the soldiers are not financially harmed themselves, they may be completely unaware that their image and persona are the tools of fraud. Publicly available photos from nearly every noteworthy Army persona from Medal of Honor winners (both living and deceased) to U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno have been used in these scams.
Numerous Army Reserve soldiers have also had their images stolen for illicit purposes. Photos are also not only used from public sites, but are also stolen from social media sites from common soldiers who leave their online profiles open.
Short of the extreme step of going cold turkey from social media, soldiers can take measures to protect themselves. Soldiers should be careful to use the security settings on their Facebook and other social media accounts and avoid sites that have loose security protocols.
According to a June 2012 study by Consumer Reports, about nine percent of Facebook users are not aware of the security settings on the site, but 28 percent of people leave their accounts open to people beyond their circle of online friends.
Using these security controls enables better control of who has access to your information and images. Soldiers should also monitor their profiles online and continually “Google” themselves to see if any illicit use of their images appear.
Grey also said if soldiers find their identity is being used in an online scam, they should report the matter to their chain of command, CID, and the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
People who encounter soldiers online should also be on the lookout for clues that the person they are dealing with is legitimate. Misspellings on scam accounts are an easy indicator, but they should also
look for facts in their discussions that don’t sound right.
Any soldier asking for money for “leave papers” or any other reason should raise red flags. The request for money set off the alarm for Debbie. Luckily for her, she had worked with military organizations in the past and detected that something wasn’t right, but other people should request help.
“They need to check with other people with knowledge of the military,” said Grey.
The most important thing is that people retain some suspicion that the person they have never met in person may not be real. Grey said that a majority of the women who have lost money in romance scams never even talked to their “soldier” but believed they were truly helping someone out.
“They want to believe so strongly that it’s not a fraud,” he said.
As for Wadsworth, she has taken action to advise and counsel others about romance scams and actively seeks out scammers on social media sites.
“I’ll never do online dating again,” she said.
| Date Taken: |
08.01.2013 |
| Date Posted: |
01.13.2014 16:11 |
| Story ID: |
119108 |
| Location: |
FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Hometown: |
CORAL SPRINGS, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: |
154 |
| Downloads: |
0 |
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This work, Betrayal of Trust (Part 1 of 2), by LTC Matthew Lawrence, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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